She continued. “When this happens, the first thing that will go down will be online maps. They’ll all vanish instantly. Poof, gone. All the people in the intelligence community who depend on those will be scrambling, because they’ve been under orders from on high to save paper costs—” She must have noticed my eyebrows going up and she smiled. “Really, paper costs. Budget cuts are even hitting delusions now.” She looked a bit sheepish, like maybe she shouldn’t have made the joke. “Anyway, the point is, the government no longer has any hard copies.”
My shock was giving way to fascination. Knowing Thomas as I did, it all made sense, in a bizarre kind of way.
“And when that happens,” Laura continued, “who do you suppose the CIA is going to be turning to?”
“Let me guess.”
She nodded. “He’ll be able to draw for them, from memory, all the street plans of all the major cities in the world. He’s got them all up here.” She tapped her temple with her index finger. She wore red nail polish.
“But hang on,” I said. “There’d still be old maps around. On paper, in libraries, in people’s homes. Millions of school atlases, for crying out loud.”
“Now you’re being logical,” Laura Grigorin chastised me. “The way your brother visualizes this apocalyptic event, those resources have already been destroyed. Libraries everywhere got rid of them and went digital. Every household has put their old maps out with the newspapers in the recycling and now relies solely on the computer. That’s why this is going to be such a catastrophe. It’ll be a world without maps, and the only person who will know how to reproduce them will be Thomas. And not just maps, but how each and every street in the world looks. Every storefront, every front yard, every intersection.”
I shook my head in wonderment. “So he’s getting ready for if and when this happens.”
“Not if,” she said. “It’s coming. That’s why he’s spending every moment in his room traveling the world, memorizing as many cities as he can before this event. I had a patient—this was several years ago—who worked at a paper in Buffalo, and every night when he went home he took all the various editions of that day’s paper with him because he was convinced that one day the entire newspaper would burn down, and he’d be the only one with a complete record of the paper’s history—at least for the period that he was there.”
“Unbelievable.”
“His house, every hallway, every room, every surface, was filled with newspaper. He had to squeeze his way through stacks of newsprint to get anywhere.”
“Sounds like one of those hoarders shows,” I said.
“The interesting thing is,” Laura said, “the newspaper did burn down.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
She shook her head. “And they found the gas can that started it in the patient’s house.”
I was stunned, briefly, and then laughed. “You’re not suggesting Thomas is going to arrange a global map-destroying virus, are you? Because I think that’s a bit beyond him.”
“I only mention the other story to show you that your brother’s obsession, while unusual, is not entirely unique. Just different in its shadings.”
“My God,” I said. Something occurred to me. “McLean.”
“What?”
“Isn’t that where the CIA has its headquarters? Thomas wanted to program a route into my car’s GPS system to get there, then thought better of it. Maybe because I didn’t yet have clearance.” I laughed. “I guess, now that he’s letting you tell me all this, I have it now.”
“Your brother trusts you. That’s a plus. People with schizophrenia often lose trust in those closest to them. They’re fearful of everyone.” She took a breath. “Now, I started off telling you there were different elements to this.”
“Okay.”
“In the meantime, before this map-destroying incident happens, Thomas believes the CIA may call on him for other help. For example, let’s say they have an agent in jeopardy in, I don’t know, Caracas or someplace. The bad guys have found him and he’s on the run, and he doesn’t know which way to turn. The CIA will put in a call to Thomas, ask him for an escape route. He’ll be able to give them one, faster than they could get it on a computer.”
I ran my palm from my forehead to the back of my neck. “He just might be able to do it, too.”
“Thomas mentions escape routes quite often, about being able to help people who are trapped, cornered in some way.”
I shook my head slowly, trying to imagine being in his head.
Grigorin continued, “And governments might also want him for help in disasters. Natural or otherwise. Think about all the tornadoes we’ve been having lately, or the earthquakes in Christchurch, in Haiti, the tsunami in Japan. Entire communities wiped out, vanished. Or, God forbid, another 9/11 kind of event. Rescuers could call Thomas, tell him that they’re at such and such a corner, and he could tell them what was there, what they should be looking for.”
“Anything else?”
Grigorin smiled sadly. “That about covers it.”
I rested my palms atop my thighs. “So where does this leave us?”
“I’m not sure. I understand, as a result of your father’s death, there may be a need to change Thomas’s living arrangements.”